


No Honor Among Thieves

by IceBlueRose



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Past Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen, Pre-Relationship, Talk of attraction for Laurel Lance/Mick Rory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceBlueRose/pseuds/IceBlueRose
Summary: No one said stealing one of the crown jewels of Portugal was going to be easy.





	1. The Rogues

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreyReh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyReh/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, Frey! I had so much fun writing this, thank you for organizing the CCBMV exchange!
> 
> Hope you like it!

Leonard Snart and Mick Rory had been partners in crime—literally—since they’d met when Mick had stopped a group of kids from beating the shit out of Leonard in juvie. Leonard had eyed Mick and then nodded as if to say he’d do. Leonard couldn’t deny that he’d first thought of Mick as all brawn, someone that would be useful when things got violent.

And then one day, Leonard had gotten bored.

He had apparently been driving Mick nuts by rejecting the books that had been given to them because he’d already read them and didn’t feel like reading them again. So Mick had sighed and rolled his eyes and told him, “If you’re really that bored, come with me.”

Mick had proceeded to drag him in to the small computer lab that they were allowed and then hacked through their security system to bring up a video game that wasn’t on the list of approved programs they were allowed to use.

“There you go,” Mick told him. “Shoot some things.”

Mick had learned to hack from his previous cellmate when Mick had gotten his hands on some matches and rather than watch Mick light things on fire, the kid had frantically offered to teach him how to hack. Mick had been interested enough in playing the video games that he’d agreed and, even better, it had turned out that he was a quick study when it came to hacking.

Suddenly, Mick was much more intriguing and much more than just the brawns to Leonard’s brains and their friendship had grown from there to the point that Leonard could honestly say that Mick had become like a brother to him.

Not that he’d ever actually say that out loud. 

There were just some things that didn’t have to be said and that was one of them.

Leonard smirked at the memory and shook his head, focusing his eyes on the room around him.

The Museum of Ligurian Archaeology in Genoa, Italy wasn’t a place that he’d normally be, despite the fact that they had a number of international exhibits—including an Egyptian room with the sarcophagus and mummy of the priest, Pasherienaset. But he couldn’t resist when he heard what their latest exhibit was going to be.

Portugal had seen fit to loan the museum some of their crown jewels, one of which was the Diadem of the Stars, a diamond tiara that had originally been commissioned by Queen Consort Maria Pia of Savoy in 1863.

Really, how was Leonard supposed to resist that sort of temptation?

The answer was simple, really. He wasn’t.

His eyes slid over towards the pretty redhead walking away from the display and in his direction. He’d seen her around the museum, specifically in this area, walking the room and checking over the exhibit. Leonard smirked a bit as he took in the way she managed to make even the business suit that was the museum’s uniform look sexy. He eyed the way her lanyard and badge fell between her breasts and the way her heels drew his gaze to her legs.

They were pretty spectacular legs.

She was reading something on her clipboard as she walked, glancing up every now and then to make sure she didn’t bump in to anyone. Despite her efforts though, Leonard watched as she tripped over the edge of one of the rugs spread over the tile.

Even as her clipboard flew out of her hands and fell to the floor, he moved forward, managing to catch her before she hit the floor as well. She gasped in surprise when he caught her then smiled gratefully at him.

“Thank you,” she told him. She laughed and shook her head, glancing down at herself. This time when she spoke, it was in Italian. “That could have been much more embarrassing than it already is.”

Leonard laughed, keeping his voice low in deference to the atmosphere of the room as he steadied her on her feet. “If anyone asks, you couldn’t resist me and this was a ploy to end up in my arms,” he replied, easily slipping in to Italian as well. Quickly, he crouched and picked up her clipboard, only glancing at the notes there, before he handed it over to her. 

“Thank you.” She nodded at him.

Leonard kept his smile soft so as to make sure she stayed relaxed. “It wasn’t a problem at all,” his eyes flicked down to her name tag and badge, “Marie.” He paused and then, in a hesitant tone that he normally never used but thought would get him a more favorable response, asked, “Would you like to get a drink with me?”

Marie smiled brightly. “I’d love that.”

~*~*~

Marie, it turned out, didn’t have a very high tolerance when it comes to alcohol. She became extremely talkative after only a few glasses of wine, chattering away about how this was a new job that she’d taken as a way to start over after she’d found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her with more than one woman.

“To hell with him,” Marie declared, lifting her glass in a mock toast. “I have Italy.” Nodding firmly, she brought the glass back to her lips and quickly finished off the wine in the glass.

“He sounds like a prince.” Leonard didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm, smirking when she laughed in response.

She sighed. “He might as well have been one. But I guess you could say he’s the reason I’m here. My sister too.”

Leonard raised an eyebrow, giving her an amused smile. “He slept with your sister too?”

She scoffed. “No! She told me to come here. Then she packed her bags and said she was coming with me.” The thought made her smile briefly before she shook her head, looking embarrassed. “Ugh, you invited me out for a drink and here I am, talking about my ex. I’m sorry.”

This time it was Leonard that shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He leaned forward. “But if you really want to make it up to me, why don’t you tell me about working at the museum?” He felt a rush of satisfaction as she launched in to a talk about her favorite exhibits which led to her duties and who she’d been getting to know.

Little things slipped through that she wouldn’t think twice of but made him smile, things like which guards she talked to on break and how they’d just switched up the schedule so it was a new group of guards instead of the old ones.

Good to know. New to the shift, they might be a bit more alert than the old ones because they would be working to prove that they could handle it.

It would make taking Portugal’s crown jewels that much more satisfying.

~*~*~

Marie was a font of information. It actually made Leonard a bit fond of her since she was making his job that much easier.

Of course, she’d probably be a bit more careful who she trusted from now on—if she figured out what he had done.

He glanced to the side where she had passed out in the passenger seat. She was facing the window, breathing softly, her hand twisted in the handle of her purse. The sight reminded him of Lisa when she was younger. Shaking his head, he looked away and focused on the road, eventually pulling up to the address she’d given him earlier.

“Marie,” he reached out and shook her shoulder, “we’re here.” It took a couple more tries before she stirred.

“Leonard?” she muttered, blinking slowly. He nodded, his lips twitching.

“We’re here,” he repeated. She glanced out the window and looked surprised at the sight of the apartment building.

“Already,” she said, surprised. She turned back to him. “I’m sorry for being such horrible company.”

Leonard lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “I didn’t mind.”

Quickly, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, her purse tipping over between them. “Thank you,” she told him. Before he could reply, she scooped up her purse and got out of the car, managing to wobble on her feet only slightly. She shot him one last smile before heading inside.

As soon as she was out of sight, he took his phone out and dialed Mick. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something in the cup holder and glanced down, stilling at what he saw.

Marie’s employee badge. It must have fallen out of her purse when she leaned over.

“Boss,” Mick greeted. “Get everything you’ll need for tonight?”

Leonard slowly smiled and tucked the badge in to his pocket.

“Oh, I even got a bonus, Mick.” He switched the phone to speaker and pulled back in to the street. “As of now, you won’t have to hack the system to get me inside.”

“Damn it,” Mick swore. “That’s half the fun.”

Leonard laughed. “Next time,” he promised.

~*~*~

Leonard scanned the outside of the museum. “Mick?”

“No guards in the area. You’re clear, Boss.”

His lips quirked up in satisfaction and he moved forward, using Marie’s badge to get in through the employee’s entrance. When the alarm beeped, he waited, nodding when Mick disarmed it from the house they were using while in Italy. He slid inside, carefully shutting the door behind him and then waited.

“Move to the left three feet and then back, there’s an alcove. You’ve got a guard coming up on his rounds,” Mick told him. Leonard didn’t hesitate to move, following Mick’s directions. He smirked when the guard walked right passed him and then waited an extra ten seconds to be sure the man wasn’t going to come back around the corner. “Clear.”

Leonard quickly moved down the hallway, pausing just out of view of the cameras so that Mick could loop the footage. It might have been easier to loop all the different cameras at once but this way was less noticeable. (Not to mention that Mick enjoyed it more.)

Slowly, he crept in to the room where the Diadem of the Stars was, pausing and ducking behind a display when a guard decided to cut through the room to get to the next corridor.

“He’s gone,” Mick said. Leonard nodded and slipped back out, heading straight for the display.

Considering these were part of the crown jewels of another country, Leonard would have thought there’d be more security. However, they only had the one guard patrolling, circling around to look back inside the room at regular intervals. During the day, there were guards stationed at each side of the exhibit but it seemed that the museum was confident that no one would be able to bypass their security and get in.

Well, their lack of security was definitely his gain.

“You’ve got one minute, thirty seconds until the guard will be able to see you again,” Mick reminded him as Leonard set his bag on the floor and crouched.

Leonard’s lips twitched. “Don’t worry,” he said so softly he was practically whispering as he set to work.

It didn’t take long before he had the case open. He knew that there was also a pressure alarm so he pressed down on the stand with one hand while removing the diadem with the other. He quickly replaced it with a small pineapple then shut the case, letting it lock automatically. As quickly as he could without damaging the diadem, he slid it in to his bag, slipped the bag so that the strap rested across his chest, and took off, Mick letting him know that he had left the footage of the cameras looping so that Leonard could simply run back to the door since there was only one guard in the area to worry about and he hadn’t even reached the point where’d he see the diadem was missing yet.

Leonard smirked as he saw the employee entrance he’d entered through. “Mick?” he said.

“No one is coming. That guard stopped to get a drink so he hasn’t even seen the damn thing missing yet.”

If he could have, Leonard would have laughed. Instead, he slid outside just as Mick grunted, “Never mind.”

Sticking to the shadows, he moved across the street and back towards his car. “So?”

“No one is near the door. The guard is on the radio and the others are running towards him. I hacked their radio frequency and they don’t even have a damn clue of how anyone could’ve gotten in.” Mick sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

“Excellent,” Leonard said, as he reached the car and slid inside. He pulled his gloves off and tossed them to the side. “I love when a job goes to plan. Going silent, Mick. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“See you soon, Boss.”

Leonard turned his comm off and allowed himself to smile as he drove, turning in the direction of the house that he and Mick were using. It was only a few minutes before a phone started ringing and he frowned. He glanced down at his phone, which he had tossed in to the cup holder, and noted that it wasn’t ringing at all. Swearing, Leonard pulled over and leaned over the passenger seat, searching for the phone he could hear but not see. After another few moments, he noticed a light from between the side of the seat and the center console. He reached down and tugged the phone out. He glanced at the screen, noting that there was no contact name, just a number.

“Hello?” he answered, speaking in English rather than Italian. He didn’t know what language the other person would speak but he’d rather answer in his native language and go from there.

“Who is this? How did you get my phone? You know what, I don’t care how you got my phone,” a woman replied. “Just do me a favor and toss it out a window or in the trash.”

“Your—“ Leonard paused as he realized who was on the other end. “Marie?”

There was a pause. “How do you know my name? Oh God, are you a stalker?”

He snorted, running a hand down his face. “It’s Leonard. I drove you home tonight after drinks? You must have dropped your phone earlier.”

“Oh,” she muttered. “Well, I stand by what I said. Just toss the phone once we hang up.” Her next words came out slightly shaky. “I...I won’t be needing it anymore.”

Leonard raised an eyebrow, unable to deny his curiosity at what she had said and how she’d said it. So rather than agree with what she’d said, he asked, “What’s wrong, Marie? Why would you want me to do that? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

“I...” Marie hesitated. “I did something illegal, Leonard. I have to leave now. Tonight.”

Well, now this was very interesting. “What did you do?”

“I stole the Diadem of the Stars.”

The smirk on Leonard’s face disappeared completely and his eyes darted towards the bag that he’d set on the floor of the passenger side of the car. “You did what?” he demanded.

“I know I shouldn’t have! But my sister, she hasn’t been doing well and so when I found out that the museum was going to have an exhibit with the crown jewels of Portugal, I...well, I had a lookalike commissioned. I said that it was for a collector that wanted to pretend he had the real thing. And then, a few weeks ago, when it arrived, I was supposed to be supervising over the unpacking of the display and over the cleaning of the jewels. I managed to switch the real one out with the fake.” She barely paused to take a breath. “I’ve been a mess at work ever since. So you see, I can’t stay. I have to leave and I’ll have my sister come with me. I took it for her, after all. She’s always thought it was so beautiful. I just...I just wanted to do something for her.”

And clearly her mind had jumped straight to committing a crime for the first time in her life if she was so inexperienced that she was just bolting right off the bat and leaving her job and life behind. Though she’d managed well enough to plan out a replacement diadem, hadn’t she?

Damn, he should have thought of that.

More importantly, he should have realized that what he had stolen was a forgery. 

This was just a bit of a detour though. He could fix this.

“Okay, Marie, I need you to calm down. Where are you?”

There was another hesitation and then, “The Port of Genoa. I managed to pay for passage on the La Mirage.”

Leonard pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment in surprise. The La Mirage was a yacht registered in the Cayman Islands, after all.

It may have been Marie’s first go as a criminal but she was doing a hell of a job.

He put the phone back to his ear. “Stay there. I’m going to come find you and I’ll help make sure you actually get on the ship, Marie.”

“You’re not going to call the police on me?”

Leonard forced himself to laugh lightly. “No, definitely not. How could I when you did it for your sister? I’m on my way. Stay where you are, okay, Marie?”

She let out a breath. “Okay,” she agreed before hanging up. Leonard did the same and scrubbed a hand down his face with a groan before flipping his comm back on.

“I’m going to be delayed a bit.”

“Why?” Mick asked immediately, proving that he’d been keeping an ear out for Leonard, just in case.

“Let’s just say, there’s a bit of a detour and I’ve got to go see a girl.”

“...she better be hot, Snart.”

Leonard thought of dark red hair and those damn legs. “Oh, trust me, she is.”

“There a reason you have to see her before coming here?”

“Yeah,” Leonard said. “But I’ll tell you when I get back.”

Mick sighed. “Fine. This better be good.”

“It is,” he promised. “Going silent again.”

“Fine.” There was a click and then Leonard was again alone with his thoughts. He swore and straightened in his seat, prepared to get to the Port of Genoa as quickly as possible.

~*~*~

He spotted Marie quickly, in casual clothes now instead of her work clothes and looking just as gorgeous in the shorts and shirt as she had in that skirt and suit jacket. She stood out with how nervous she looked, not to mention she was pacing back and forth in front of a chair. His eyes flicked down and noted the bag at her feet.

That had to be where the diadem was. Nodding, he stepped forward and, when she turned to continue pacing, he lifted a hand slightly to draw her attention. The look of utter relief that appeared on her face when she saw him told him everything that he needed to know.

He was definitely going to be doing her a favor by taking the real thing off of her. She could make do with the extremely well done forgery she’d had created.

“Marie,” he greeted as he walked up to her.

“Leonard,” she breathed. She looked like she wanted to hug him though she thankfully fought that urge. Apparently hugging the man you’d gotten drunk in front of was not a good thing.

He wondered how drunk she still was.

Tilting his head, he studied her and realized that she must have rapidly sobered up because he was sure she was closer to tipsy than drunk. But she was also still very nervous from the looks of it.

“Marie,” he repeated. “Are you okay?”

“I’m freaking out,” she admitted.

He nodded. “Well, answer me this. Will they be able to tell that it’s a fake?”

“Once they handle it too much, probably. It’s not made of real metal or gold and the gems are glass. Put too much pressure on it and it’ll break.”

Well, he thought, adjusting the strap of his bag, now he was really glad that she hadn’t hugged him. She might have damaged the forgery.

“Okay, then,” Leonard told her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You need to calm down before you get on that ship. So, I want you to take a deep breath and go wash your face. The cold water will help.”

She smiled. “Thank you.” She turned to go and then paused. “Oh, will you watch my bag?”

Leonard smiled, making sure not to let any satisfaction or triumph show, and nodded. “It’d be my pleasure.”

“Thank you,” she repeated before jogging in to the nearby bathroom. Leonard sat in the chair that was next to the one her bag was under and waited until she was out of sight. He counted to fifteen just to be sure she wouldn’t come running back out and then quickly reached in to her bag. It was impossible to miss the diadem, despite the fact that it was wrapped up in a black cloth. Glancing around, he noted that no one was paying attention to him as he unwrapped the diadem. 

He let out a breath of relief at the sight of it but didn’t allow himself to linger over it. Instead, he reached in to his bag and pulled out the forgery, wrapping it up in the cloth, and slipping it back in to her bag. Carefully, he slid the actual diadem in to his bag, closed it, and leaned back in the seat. 

It was only a few minutes later that Marie came back out of the bathroom and Leonard allowed a much more genuine smile to appear on his face. After all, he had the real Diadem of the Stars in his bag and Marie wouldn’t know that she’d lost the real thing until she somehow managed to accidentally break the forgery. By then, they’d both be long gone from Italy, he was sure.

He stood and picked up her bag, holding it out to her. “Do you have anything else?” 

She shook her head. “No, I already handed them over to be loaded on to the ship.” She glanced behind her. “I asked my sister to meet me on there. I told her it was just going to be a vacation. I’ll have to tell her the truth once we dock.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand. She came to Italy with you after all.”

Marie smiled gratefully. “I hope so.”

Leonard gestured for her to start walking and he walked beside her until they reached the gate that she’d have to pass through to get to the dock and board. He watched until she was boarding and then turned, walking away. 

He was nearly at the car when he stopped, an uneasy feeling coming over him and he glanced down at his bag and then back in the direction that he’d just come from. It was a feeling that he only got when something was about to go wrong.

_Alexa._

He flung the bag open and yanked the diadem out, hefting it in his hands. It felt like the correct weight. Still...

Leonard held it up in his hands and put as much pressure on it as he could.

It snapped.

Stomach sinking and anger building, he stared at the two halves in his hands and without a second thought, he dropped them and turned, breaking in to a run as he rushed back towards the gate.

He barely stopped himself from colliding with the fence and his eyes scanned the deck of the ship, stopping on a very familiar redhead in shorts and a shirt, leaning against the railing as the yacht pulled away from the dock.

As if she could feel his eyes on her, she turned and started looking at the people in the crowd. Despite the distance, he could see the moment that she spotted him and the smile that appeared on her face. Leonard couldn’t stop the disbelief he felt from showing on his face when she very deliberately reached up and pulled at her hair, the red wig sliding off and blonde hair tumbling down past her shoulders.

She dropped the wig over the railing and then waggled her fingers at him in a mocking wave before picking up her bag and walking along the deck until she rounded a corner, entering the cabin, and was out of sight.

“Fuck,” he swore quietly, running his hands up his face and over his forehead until he could lock them behind his head. Closing his eyes, he let out a long breath and lowered his hands to his pockets and pulled out his phone, dialing Mick’s number without even looking.

He continued to watch the La Mirage sail away with a nameless blonde and _his_ damn score onboard even as Mick answered.

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Mick,” Leonard drawled, his voice laced with cold fury. “We’ve got a problem.”


	2. The Canaries

No one would have expected Laurel and Sara Lance to ever become criminals. They were good girls, after all, the daughters of a cop and a professor. Laurel wanted to become a lawyer and Sara wasn’t sure what she wanted to do yet though she’d discovered a love of working behind the scenes as a makeup artist in theatre during high school. Laurel was dating Oliver Queen, the heir to the Queen fortune, and everyone fully expected her to become Laurel Queen one day. Sara was a bit more on the wild side, dating boys from the wrong side of the tracks and causing her father stress, but everyone expected that she’d grow out of that phase.

And then, when Laurel was a freshman in college, Oliver Queen was found dead. The murder weapon had Laurel’s fingerprints on it and the scene looked like Oliver had been there with another woman.

Despite the fact that even the Queen family had insisted that Laurel wouldn’t have done it, Laurel had been convicted of second degree murder with the option for parole.

While Laurel had been in prison, doing her best to stay on her best behavior, she’d gotten involved in working out and had begun to tone and build her endurance. One of the women had taken her under wing and taught her to fight so that she could defend herself if it came down to it. She’d listened in when the women talked about pulling off heists, when they talked about engineering and things like how they had related it to learning how to arm and disarm security systems. She may not be able to go to law school anymore but she began to receive an entirely different kind of education.

Sara, on the other hand, had been determined to figure out who was really responsible for the death of Oliver Queen. She’d known that it wouldn’t be easy and that there was a chance she could get in trouble. So she’d started taking various martial arts classes. When she moved up to a new level, she started combining the moves she’d already mastered in to her own fighting style by mixing the different styles with dance moves. She learned how to parkour and started to slowly introduce it in to her fighting style as well over the years.

When her father had offered to take her to the shooting range one day, she’d taken him up on the offer. She learned how to shoot various guns and got a license so that no one could say that she or her father were doing anything illegal after she bought a gun to keep in her room.

She worked on becoming a better makeup artist in high school and then enrolled in to cosmetic school so that she could continue to improve. It got to the point that she was the head makeup artist for student productions at the university. She didn’t get paid but she earned credit hours for it. Once she graduated, she started in the local theatre as well as working as a waitress.

And between all of that, she investigated. It wasn’t easy. Sara was already pushing herself to her limits but this was for Laurel. It was for Ollie, who had indulged her crush on him with a grin and a tug of her hair. It was for Tommy, who had stood behind Laurel and defended her whenever someone made a snide comment about her even now. It was for the Queens, who had staunchly insisted that Laurel was innocent and had never gotten closure over Oliver’s death.

She’d started with the girl that Oliver had apparently been with. It hadn’t been easy. She had to practically bribe one of her friends who was a hacker to search the security footage of the building until the shot of the girl could be pulled up. It had been blurry but she’d continued and found a clear one later, when she’d been running out of the building. She’d had to give up a good portion of her check and tips to convince her friend to use the picture to track down a name and address but they had eventually found her.

Her name was Susan and she was the best lead that Sara had since she hadn’t seen anyone else going in or out of the building except one other person—who was, conveniently, the same build as Laurel with the same coloring. Someone who had deliberately kept their face turned away from the cameras as if she’d known they were there.

Susan had confirmed that no one had ever come to talk to her and that had told Sara all she needed to know about the investigating officers.

They had to have been paid off. There had been officers that had shown their support but they had been warned off of working the investigation or they risked losing their jobs. If it had been any of them running the investigation, she knew that they’d have tracked down Susan and tried to find this other girl.

She suddenly understood why her father had begun to look so resigned as the investigation went on. While Susan had agreed to talk to Sara’s friend, Lucy (who was an artist), she had refused to come forward to confess that it hadn’t been Laurel that had burst in on her and Oliver. It had been a man, one that Oliver had obviously known though Oliver had never said the man’s name. He’d been wearing gloves and had slammed the hammer in to Oliver’s head in just the right spot.

Oliver hadn’t stood a chance.

The man had told Susan that she could go if she never went to the police and Susan had stuck by that. Once she’d talked to Lucy, she had left town. As sorry as she was for Laurel, she wasn’t risking her life for a girl she’d never met.

Sara hadn’t even been able to be surprised, honestly. 

She had, however, been surprised when she’d seen the picture of the man that Susan had described to Lucy. She knew that face. She’d run wild through his house with her sister and their friends when they were growing up. Hell, he’d joined them all at the Queens for dinner just the week before.

Malcolm Merlyn.

She had the who, everyone knew the how, and now she just needed the why.

This time, her hacker friend hadn’t wanted to get involved.

“I love you, Sara, but I’m not hacking in to Malcolm Merlyn’s files,” he told her.

“Then teach me how to do it.”

“You think this is going to be something you can just learn? It’s not. Even if I teach you how to hack in to there, there are still traps that might be hidden in there that could trip you up.” He shook his head. “You’d be better off finding another way in.”

So Sara had.

She’d used her talents as a makeup artist to completely change her looks, going so far as to change the shape of her face as well as wearing a wig and colored contacts. She didn’t want to take any chances that she might be recognized if she got caught.

It had been a simple matter of waiting for Tommy to throw a party. She’d gone in with different looks and clothes she usually wouldn’t wear and had snuck in to Malcolm’s personal office, praying that he had kept some sort of record over what he’d done and that it was here.

If there was one thing that she knew, it was that he wouldn’t risk keeping it at his work office. Too risky.

She frowned as she stared at the computer screen. Password. Of course, she’d need a password just to get in. Everyone had a password now.

Sara tapped her fingers on the desk, thinking of what she’d been told about passwords. People went for the easy. They went for something they’d never forget. 

Leaning forward, she typed in Rebecca, shaking her head when it was denied. 

It’d been enough to get the password hint though. She rolled her eyes. Of course it was in another language. Tilting her head, Sara narrowed her eyes.

That was French. She’d taken Italian but Laurel had taken French and they used to say things to each other in one language and reply in the other, laughing at how easy it was to hold a conversation in two different languages.

The hint roughly translated to “the date I met the woman I married” and Sara smirked because that was a date that she knew. Tommy had talked about how his parents had gotten married on the two year anniversary of the day they’d met. She knew the date they’d gotten married because Malcolm had a framed copy of their wedding invitation. Quickly, she typed in the date and nodded in satisfaction when it let her in.

She checked the history and noted that there was nothing – Malcolm must clear his history whenever he was ready to log off.

Well, that made her life easier.

Eyes darting to the door, she glanced at the sliver of light beneath it, checking for shadows of people walking by. She only looked away once she could tell no one was there and then she began going through files.

In the end, the answer, the motive behind Oliver’s death was simple.

Business. Malcolm seemed to want in on the Queens’s company but he also wanted control. Oliver may have been a playboy that kept getting kicked out of college but he was also the Queen heir. Thanks to his relationship to Tommy, Sara knew that Oliver wouldn’t have worked with Malcolm. Not after the way the man treated Oliver’s best friend.

The DNA test that she found revealing that Thea Queen was Malcolm’s daughter and not Robert’s allowed everything to click in place. Thea might not know now who her biological father was but Malcolm had the proof. All he had to do was show it to Thea and she’d be furious with Robert and Moira for keeping this from her.

But Malcolm would be there, the father that had figured out their relationship to each other and told her the truth. She’d be willing to listen to him, even if it was only to rebel against what Moira wanted.

Swallowing hard, she shakily pulled out a USB drive and plugged it in to the computer, making a copy of everything and saving it to the USB. Once that was done, she shoved the USB in to her pocket, cleared the history of everything that she had looked at, and shut off the computer. Quietly, she slipped out of the office and back in to the main part of the party, taking a drink and using it to avoid people approaching her as she made her way out of the house. Outside, she tossed the beer to the side and broke in to a run.

Everything she had was motive. But it was also speculation since it wasn’t like Malcolm kept a journal. What she thought was all based off what she knew about Malcolm Merlyn and what she’d pieced together through the various files of contracts, folders full of blackmail against the officers that had headed the investigation, and the DNA test for Thea.

If she told Moira and Robert, they’d know the truth but they wouldn’t be able to use any of this. It hadn’t come from the police, it had come from her breaking in to Malcolm’s computer. She had never gone to law school or anything but she was fairly certain that her methods would render the evidence inadmissible.

It had taken her years to get this far. Laurel was going to be up for parole next year.

She’d hold on to this.

~*~*~

Six years after she’d been sent to prison, Laurel was granted parole.

The night that Laurel arrived home, Sara revealed everything that she’d found out, everything that she’d never been able to tell Laurel while she was in prison. The risk had been too high that someone would overhear or read Laurel’s mail. So Sara had once told her that she was working on it and never said another thing about it after that.

“We can’t do anything just yet,” Laurel muttered.

“What? Why?” Sara demanded. Laurel gave her a pointed look.

“For one thing, no one will believe us and, from what you just told me, he’s got enough money and blackmail material that he’d never get convicted. If anything, we’d be the ones punished.”

Sara sighed. “Then what do you want to do? How are we supposed to make him pay for this?”

The only description that Sara could have come up with for the look in Laurel’s eyes was to say that they were blazing with anger and grief.

“We’re going to kill him.”

Sara sucked in a breath. Killing Malcolm Merlyn wasn’t something that she had ever considered. Once they crossed that line, there would be no going back.

But this was her sister.

“How?”

Laurel shook her head. “I don’t know. But we’ll have to wait.” She stood up and began to pace. “I’m on parole and if I do anything to mess that up, it’s trouble. So I’m going to have to find some sort of job.”

“It’s not ideal but that coffee shop down on Silver is hiring.”

Laurel blew out a breath. “And they might just be willing to give a convicted murderer a chance considering the part of town.” She nodded and smiled at Sara, dimples flashing. “I’ll try there. Thanks, sis.”

“Okay, well that hopefully takes care of the job. If they don’t hire you, we’ll come back to it. What else?”

“I can petition to have my parole terminated after two years if I keep out of any sort of trouble. Doing that will make things so much easier for us. If we need to leave, we can tell people we’re traveling and I won’t have to check in.”

“So we use the next two years to plan out Malcolm’s murder.”

“And you should enroll at the local university if you can,” Laurel added. “Or take a few classes at least.”

Sara raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“I’m probably not going to ever get a good job with my record. If I do, it’d be because of pure luck. So I was thinking you could take some art history classes. Learn about the different periods, possibly learn how to figure out the value. I learned about security systems and engineering while I was in there. A few of the girls decided to teach me about it and I know how to defend myself a lot more than I used to with those classes Dad signed us up for. You told me everything that you’ve been doing and then there’s the fact that you can shoot. Hell, take some science classes like chemistry and a few others. Math classes, some physics. Use the two years to get an associate’s degree at the very least.”

Everything that Laurel had thrown out there were things that Sara had always shown interest in. Despite her love for the arts (even if she’d been adamant about being behind the scenes), she’d always been good with science and math as well. But what Laurel had said, there was only one thing that came to mind when Sara put it all together.

“Art thieves?”

Laurel smiled. “I hear it pays well.”

~*~*~

Sara double majored rather than choosing just one. The counselor she’d been assigned at the university thought she was crazy to get an associate’s in both science and art history. It would take her three years instead of the usual two but that had turned out to be a good thing.

Laurel had gotten the job at the coffee shop and saved what she earned. She tinkered with the alarm system there to keep what she knew fresh in her mind. She kept her head down and checked in when she was supposed to. After two years, the Commission had granted the request of her parole officer to have her parole terminated. Laurel had told Sara that the extra year it had taken for Sara to get her degrees was perfect so that no one would look twice at them when Malcolm died.

Sara smiled. “No one will look at us anyway.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because I’ve been experimenting. I’ve come up with a poison that will mimic the effects of a heart attack and by the time they take blood to run a tox screen, it’ll be out of his system.”

A slow smile spread across Laurel’s face. “You’re sure?”

“I know it’s not the same and I had to take in to account the variables of that but I tested it on rats while I was developing it.” Sara shrugged. “It’s all numbers to figure out how large of a dose we’ll need for Malcolm.”

Laurel let out a breath and closed her eyes. Sara would be graduating in less than a month and they’d planned to do this after she graduated though Sara had made a point of telling people she was trying to convince Laurel to go on a trip with her to celebrate graduating and get Laurel out there for the first time in years. Laurel had even gone so far as to call her former parole officer and double check that she could go on a trip without any worries.

Better safe than sorry after all.

Not that she’d be traveling under her own name. Sara had set up fake identities for the both of them and after the all clear on traveling for Laurel, they’d driven a few hours away and tested the IDs. They’d been worth every penny, even withstanding the type of testing that airports used to verify them.

“We should probably eventually set up multiple identities. You never know when that’ll come in handy,” Laurel mused. 

Sara nodded in agreement. “We will.” She tilted her head back so that she was staring at the ceiling. “You realize we’ll probably need to move away from here at some point? Too much scrutiny around here.”

“I know.” Laurel leaned back, mirroring Sara’s position. “After.”

“After.”

~*~*~

The chance to kill Malcolm Merlyn came a week after Sara graduated. Their parents had decided to throw a barbeque to celebrate and both Sara and Laurel had made sure they had a small vial of the poison on them so that whoever had the chance first could slip it in to his drink.

Laurel was happy that it was her. It felt right.

She had walked over to make small talk with him when he’d asked her to hold his drink so he could use both hands to demonstrate the size and shape of some project his company was working on. Since she didn’t have a drink, it’d been a simple matter to slip her hand in her pocket, flip the lid off the vial and then carefully slide it out of her pocket. She’d simply switched the drink to her right hand and held it from the top so that she could tip the poison in. She’d made a show of digging through one pocket and then the other—using that as an excuse to put the vial back in her pocket—and sighed about forgetting a hair tie when Malcolm had asked what was wrong. He’d smiled and taken his drink back and she’d left to go put her hair up.

Fifteen minutes later, he collapsed.

“I can’t believe he just collapsed,” Moira said, watching with Laurel and Sara as the ambulance drove away with Malcolm in the back. (Not that he’d survive the trip.) “I wonder what happened.”

Laurel took a deep breath. “Justice for Oliver,” she admitted, her voice low enough that only Moira and Sara heard her.

Sara nodded. “He can rest now.”

Moira’s head whipped around to look at them, her eyes widening at what they’d said. “You mean...Malcolm?” she whispered, her voice choked.

“Sara figured it out the year before I was paroled,” Laurel told her.

“I broke in to his computer and made copies of the files he had. He’d paid off and blackmailed a number of people on the force and enough that were higher up that I didn’t feel comfortable telling you or Robert,” Sara explained. “I’m sorry.” She paused. “I’ll give you the USB later. There’s a few things on there that are about you.”

“This...with his connections, this was the only thing we could think of to make him pay for it,” Laurel added.

Moira stared at them and then pulled them each in to a tight hug. “Thank you,” she breathed. She smiled and it was lighter than it had been in years. “I always liked you girls.” She reached up and cupped a hand around Laurel’s left cheek and Sara’s right. She nodded at them and then walked back to her husband.

~*~*~

Over the next four years, Sara and Laurel made a name for themselves amongst the world of thieves. They were known as the Canaries (Sara adopting the name White Canary while Laurel used Black Canary) so that no one would know their actual names. They moved to Keystone City since they knew the Rogues were based in Central City, though Central had been their first choice.

Starling City—now known as Star City—was no longer a good choice to call home. It was well known to their friends and family that Sara’s favorite bird was the canary and, after she’d had one for a pet as a child, no one was likely to forget. There was also the fact that it seemed like everyone’s eyes were on the Lances and the Queens, speculating how they could still be so close.

They’d pulled their first job as the Canaries while still living in Starling City though they’d made the deal and met the buyer in Keystone, establishing that as their base. Once they’d pulled a couple more jobs and word had spread that Keystone was now taken, they had moved there permanently so that no one in law enforcement would realize that the Canaries and the Lance sisters were one and the same. Really, it would have been obvious if they’d moved there first and _then_ established themselves.

And then Laurel had entered their loft, letting the door slam behind her. “We’ve got a job,” she called.

Sara glanced up. “Oh? What is it?”

Laurel dropped on the couch and turned to face Sara, a smile appearing on her face. “How would you like to spend some time in Italy?”

“They’re talking about hiring me to do the makeup for _Phantom of the Opera_ in a couple of months from what April told me. How long would we be gone?”

“We’d get back in time for the first show but it’d probably be cutting it close.” Laurel looked like she was about to burst so Sara sighed.

“What’s the job?”

“The Diadem of the Stars.”

Sara’s gaze sharpened, eyes narrowing in thought. “As in one of the crown jewels of Portugal?”

“The very one.”

“It’s not our usual sort of job. What’s the catch?”

“The buyer stated that the Rogues are planning to steal it from the Museum of Ligurian Archaeology in Genoa, Italy since Portugal has agreed to loan it to them for one of the exhibits. He doesn’t want them to leave Italy with the real thing. So...” Laurel trailed off, knowing that her sister would understand exactly where she was going with this.

“I get hired at the museum using one of my fake identities. Preferably a new one that can be disposed of. We let the Rogues do the work of getting it out of the museum and then we get it from them,” Sara mused. “I’d be the better bet getting hired since I’m more fluent in Italian than you. Change my look, get settled there and we keep an eye out for the Rogues arriving. Watch their movements and then whichever one is going to be doing the actual stealing will be the one I need to get the diadem from.”

“That’s the only part I haven’t figured out how to do yet.”

Sara grinned. “Oh, I’ve got an idea.”

~*~*~

It hadn’t been hard to figure out who the Rogues were—they used their real names after all—and so it wasn’t hard to set the computer to ping their names when they entered Italy. Leonard Snart and Mick Rory had rented a house not far from the museum.

It wasn’t long before Sara started to see him around the museum.

She made sure that she walked through the room with the diadem a couple of times a day, checking on it, and after almost a week of this, she got lucky and noticed Leonard in the room. He was walking around, pretending to look at the other exhibits even though she noted the way his head would sometimes turn slightly in the direction of the diadem. He saved the diadem itself to be the last thing he looked at and it was when he had turned towards the case and guards that he had spotted her.

Sara had offered him a quick smile and then gone back to talking to the guard, feeling the way his eyes had gone over her before he’d looked back at the case, acting as though he were reading the information plaque that had been stationed in front of it.

He visited a few more times over the next two weeks, never on a regular basis and always seeming as if he’d made the decision to come on a whim. 

Sara had seen the look on his face on his most recent visit and had taken a chance. She’d learned over the years that sometimes that was just the best way to go. And that chance had paid off when she’d stumbled and Leonard had moved forward to catch her.

Of course then he’d laughed and spoken and she’d had to fight not to let her eyes close at the sound of his voice. It was just her luck that his voice was as attractive as the rest of him.

Damn it.

Still, she’d forced herself to keep up the act of Marie Burrows, here in Italy with her sister after her boyfriend had cheated on her. The act included lowering her voice so that it was throatier than usual because, as she’d learned early on, you never knew when you might run in to someone from the criminal world in your everyday life.

She had sighed over the phone to Laurel on her break later. “I’m attracted to him.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” Sara groaned. “Ugh, that just figures.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m staring at his partner and fighting not to go flirt with him.”

Sara paused. Laurel hadn’t been a nun since she’d gotten paroled but they were mostly one night stands and she usually let them approach her. This was the first time since Oliver that Laurel had actually expressed interest in approaching someone instead of the other way around.

Well, wasn’t that just their luck? The very men they were going to rip off and they were attracted to the two of them.

“Are you going to?”

She could practically see Laurel shaking her head. “No. We’ve got a job to do and I’m just supposed to be observing him. You going to do anything with Leonard?” Laurel’s voice turned teasing the way it had when they were teenagers and Sara had a crush on someone.

Sara rolled her eyes. “No. Like you said, we’ve got a job to do. I’m going with him for drinks tonight though. I figure that’ll be a good time to lose Marie’s badge and phone in his car.” 

“He’s for sure going for it tonight then?”

“They’re known for getting in and out on a job. The Rogues might take their time planning but once they show up, they don’t stay long. This is already longer than I expected. But considering he actually made a move on the pretty museum employee he makes a point of eyeing every time he visits, yes, I think it’ll be tonight. If you can find a way to confirm though, that’d be better.”

“There is something I can do. We’ve still got those bugs. I’ll see if I can get one on Rory.”

“Good luck. Text me if you get it.”

“Count on it.”

A couple of hours later, Sara had chattered away at Leonard about her cheating boyfriend, her sister encouraging her to come to Italy, and had half a bottle of wine. Of course, Sara had a high enough tolerance for alcohol that this wasn’t doing anything to her. Not that Leonard knew that.

She had to give him credit. He let her talk about anything and everything. However, it was also obvious why he was doing it when he smiled and encouraged her to talk about what it was like working at the museum.

So she had told him what he needed to know, the way they’d had to switch up the guards and their shifts because of the new exhibit, how many guards would work at night, everything. It wasn’t easy to slip all those details in there without making it seem obvious but she managed.

It was worth it when she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. Glancing at Leonard as he walked ahead to get the car door for her, she chanced a glance at it and smiled.

_It’s tonight._

Jackpot.

~*~*~

Sara wrapped the replica of the Diadem of the Stars in a black cloth and slipped it in to a large bag before making sure she was dressed casually. Considering the way Leonard had stared at her legs in a skirt, she chose shorts instead of jeans.

“You’ve got everything?” she called to Laurel who was going to head to the La Mirage and board. Sara had her ticket ready, all she needed to do now was get the diadem from Leonard. 

“Yeah,” Laurel replied shrugging a light jacket on. “You’re just wearing that?”

“Leonard Snart is apparently a leg man.”

Laurel grinned and shook her head. “You’re terrible.”

Sara shrugged. “Well, I’m about to put all his hard work to waste. At least he’ll get a nice view of my legs.” She checked a mirror, checking to be sure that her makeup looked the same as before. Leonard was the sort of man that noticed details so if she’d messed up when altering the shape of her face, he’d notice. Turning her head from left to right, she nodded in satisfaction. “And if we ever meet again, he won’t recognize me.”

“Considering you’ve changed your hair, eyes, and face as well as covered your freckles, I don’t doubt it.”

She grinned. “Now if he ever meets blonde haired and blue eyed Sara Lance, he’ll never connect her to Marie Burrows, the redhead with green eyes.”

Laurel laughed. “Planning to make a trip to Central City?”

“Well, you never know.” She checked her phone, using it to track the phone that she had used as Marie and nodded. “He’s heading to the museum. We better get going.”

~*~*~

Sara had barely finished checking in her bags when she checked her phone and saw that Leonard was now leaving the museum. She glanced at Laurel.

“That’s my cue.”

Laurel hugged her. “I swear, sometimes I think you should have been on the stage instead of behind it,” she whispered, laughing when Sara made a face. “I’ll be waiting with champagne to celebrate.”

“Don’t jinx us!” Sara shoved at her sister and then moved so that she was further in to the crowd and dialed Marie’s number on one of the nearby payphones. (Who knew there were still payphones anywhere?)

It took a while but eventually he answered, this time in English rather than the Italian they’d used most of the night. She played up still being slightly tipsy as she demanded to know if he was a stalker. 

She could practically see the look of amusement on his face at that one.

But now it was time to get him here. “Well, I stand by what I said. Just toss the phone once we hang up.” She let her voice get shaky over the next words. “I...I won’t be needing it anymore.”

“What’s wrong, Marie? Why would you want me to do that? You’re not in trouble, are you?”

He actually sounded concerned beneath the curiosity. It was a bit sweet. “I...” Sara hesitated. “I did something illegal, Leonard. I have to leave now. Tonight.”

The curiosity outweighed the concern this time when he spoke. “What did you do?”

“I stole the Diadem of the Stars.”

There was a pause and she wondered if he was trying to calm down or pulling out the diadem to check. She decided it must have been the former when there was no sound on the other end until he demanded, “You did what?”

Sara allowed herself a brief smile. 

Got him.

~*~*~

It was easy to keep up the act of being nervous when that was the way she actually felt. If she screwed up at this point, she and Laurel would be absolutely screwed.

So she took a deep breath, jiggling her leg, and then pushing to her feet. She began to pace in front of the chair as the tracking app showed that Leonard was getting near. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the car he’d been driving earlier pull up and took another deep breath.

She pretended to just notice him when she turned to go back in the other direction and let a look of relief appear on her face when he said Marie’s name.

“Leonard,” she breathed as if he was the best thing she’d seen. She watched as he tilted his head and studied her and she allowed her nerves to show.

“Marie,” he repeated. “Are you okay?”

Sara bit her lip. “I’m freaking out.”

Leonard nodded in understanding. “Well, answer me this. Will they be able to tell that it’s a fake?”

Clever, Sara thought even as she fought not to smile. Instead, she nodded back. “Once they handle it too much, probably. It’s not made of real metal or gold and the gems are glass. Put too much pressure on it and it’ll break.” She watched as he adjusted the strap of his bag and pressed her lips together.

“Okay then,” he told her, putting his hands on her shoulder. “You need to calm down before you get on that ship. So, I want you to take a deep breath and go wash your face. The cold water will help.”

And it’d leave him alone with her bag. Perfect. The smile she gave him was genuine. “Thank you.” She turned to go and then paused as if something had occurred to her. “Oh, will you watch my bag?”

Leonard smiled at her. “It’d be my pleasure.”

Yeah, she’d just bet it would.

~*~*~

Sara let out a sigh of relief once she was on the La Mirage. As it pulled away from the dock, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, tilting her head back and enjoying the ocean breeze.

The Diadem of the Stars was theirs—well, their buyer’s—and this job was a success. She had no doubt about that. Despite his best efforts, there’d been just a hint of smug triumph in Leonard’s eyes when she’d returned from the bathroom. Not to mention the smile he’d given her. 

She opened her eyes and turned to look back at the people gathered along the fence, letting her eyes scan the crowd. The sight of Leonard made her pause and she couldn’t help but smile.

So, he’d already figured it out. He really was a smart man.

Still, she couldn’t resist reaching up and tugging her wig off. The look on his face was worth the risk—after all, he may know now that she was blonde but he didn’t know anything else about her real looks. So rather than worry, she dropped the wig over the railing and then gave him a mocking wave of her fingers. 

Satisfied, Sara picked up the bag and walked away, entering the cabin and leaving Leonard Snart behind her. Sara grinned as she entered the room that Laurel had settled in, gently lowering the bag to the floor and accepting the glass of champagne even as she pulled the diadem out, shaking the cloth off of it and holding it up.

They stared at it for a few moments and then turned to each other, matching smiles appearing on their faces.

“We did it,” Sara said.

“Job well done, sis,” Laurel agreed.

They lifted their glasses to each other in a silent toast then tapped their glasses against each other in celebration.


End file.
